Tribune. A study conducted by the National Agency for the Development of Cinema in the Regions shows that French independent distributors lost 70% of their admissions in September 2021 compared to September 2019, while American studios grew by 33%.
This category of distributors, weakened by the health crisis, is however the one that finances and distributes the majority of films presented at Cannes each year, the great authors of world cinema, but also the first and second films which ensure the renewal of talents. These same distributors are those who ensure the presence of films for young audiences, and supply the schools, colleges and high schools in cinema programs set up by the National Center for Cinema and Animated Image. However, their work remains unknown to the general public.
Distributors are the first to read and invest in screenplays for future films, French or foreign, well ahead of television channels, regions, finance companies in the film and audiovisual industry. and other funders in the sector. When the film is shot, they are still the first to discover the editing, sometimes to rework it with producer and director and then orchestrate the film’s release: presentation at festivals, choice of release date and press officer. , choice of rooms and number of screens, creation of trailers, posters, press kits and all promotional elements. All this on their own funds, to which are added the financial advances paid to acquire the films. In total, their investments amount to several tens of millions of euros per year, recoverable for the most part from the receipts from theatrical admissions.
More and more threatened place
The distributor is the essential link between those who make the films – authors, directors, producers – and those who exploit them – the cinemas. The digitization of society, accelerated by the health crisis, tends to eliminate intermediaries, and the giants of online distribution have forged direct, even unavoidable, access to consumers. The very determined tendency of certain platforms to release their “originals” on the big screen by negotiating directly with theaters proves how the place of the distributor is increasingly threatened.
Uses have shifted towards the online purchase of cultural goods, and have launched a new debate in our society: what is an essential good? It is in this way that the common struggle of booksellers and their readers has enabled books to gain access to this new distinction from the government, a distinction refused to cinema and to cultural performances in general.
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